The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the Classic Stage Company was an experience I cannot forget. Though an extremely small and intimate setting, the play was amazingly staged and kept me engaged throughout the whole 2 hours or so of the production. As a self-proclaimed theater buff, I thoroughly enjoyed the production for its story and its ingenuity.
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht is an allegory for the rise of Hitler in Germany preceding World War II and the Holocaust. Each scene in the play has a direct counterpart in real life but in the world of Arturo Ui, it was about Ui controlling the Cauliflower Trust of Chicago. I liked that this play was inventive in the fact that it took such a complex series of events and simplified it to a smaller scale and to a smaller business yet still had the potency required. I also loved the use of taking some characters hats as a symbol for them being killed by Ui’s woman.
The actor that played Ui (pictured above) was extremely in character (though he sounded a lot like Lin Manuel Miranda) and played the part of Ui very well. His mannerisms and expressions fit the context of the play very well and at one point you could even see his spit as he talked which showed the conviction he delivered his dialogue with. I also really liked the actors who played Dogsborough and Roma.
In addition to the amazing actors, the use of the small performance space was also very engaging and well done. At one point in the play, the actors spread out throughout the audience. This created a very personal experience as I felt like the actors were looking directly at me while delivering their dialogues. Additionally, the use of lighting to separate the scenes and show different settings was also very interesting and well done to use their limited space very well. (Sidenote, the coordination of the cast as they even brought out the foldable tables was commendable).
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed watching this show and would love to go back and see it another time. But if I have one critique it would be about costumes as one of the actors was in sweatpants during the production and it was not very true to the play. Besides this, I enjoyed the production a lot and give a great round of applause to the actors as well as the lighting crew and the person who helped stage this production to make it truly engaging for me.
